V – There’s more to the rebellion than we know
Last week, in my review of V, I complained a bit about the story line involving Ryan and the undercover rebellious V. This episode went quite a long way to solving that issue. With new mysteries and a little more details about the rebellion (though I would like some more), I have to admit that I’m starting to get more interested in V.
I can’t, however, say the same thing about the plot involving Tyler and Lisa. So… I just won’t even mention it any further.
Ratings Clack – Should FOX switch Fringe and Lie To Me?
After the dramatic entrance of V last week, there were no similar big splash stories to lead things off this week. Then, as I was perusing the year-ago numbers, something occurred to me. It’s quite possible that FOX could improve both Monday and Thursday at 9:00 if they swapped Fringe and Lie To Me. If you look back to the initial Fringe run, it had a lot of success following House. In fact, while the House numbers are virtually unchanged from Tuesday to Monday, Fringe was holding much more of the House audience on Tuesday than Lie To Me currently is on Monday.
Example:
11/18/08: House (13.03m/5.5), Fringe (9.36m/4.2)
11/09/09: House (13.31m/5.3), Lie To Me (7.41m/3)
And that was against very similar competition. Both faced DWTS on ABC, which was pretty much a wash. NBC was greatly improved against Fringe with Biggest Loser (7.84m/3.3), as opposed to Trauma (5.35m/1.8). And CBS was mixed, with The Mentalist (15.83m/3.5) trailing the Men/Big Bang hour (13.62m/4.6) in the demo.
Now we look at where we are this season. Fringe did manage something of a rebound this week, finishing with (5.91m/2.2) on Thursday. That’s still a distant fourth place, and should find the show on the hot seat at the end of the season. It would, obviously, do better on Monday following House. The question is, would it do better than the (7.41m/3) that Lie To Me is currently offering? I think it would.
On the other side of that coin, while I’m not quite as confident about the move of Lie To Me to Thursday, I do still see the potential for it to outperform the current Fringe numbers. That bar has been set, after all, rather low. It would likely take a hit in the move, but the end result would be that Thursday at 9:00 is stronger as well. Just something to think about. The usual numbers junk is after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Ratings Clack – V gets off to a great start
The World Series was the big ratings winner last week, but with New York involved, everyone kind of expected that, right? What nobody expected — most notably ABC — was the success of the V premiere. The numbers weren’t just good. It was the highest rated scripted program on the network, topping the Housewives and Grey’s. Even better, the V demo rating was the highest for a scripted show on any of the networks. Someone at ABC has to be kicking themselves for only ordering four episodes of V, while they continue to crank out more Hanks than they know what to do with. Read the rest of this entry »
Will Bones fans ever accept Angela with someone beside Hodgins
The story of Angela and Hodgins is, to many fans, as integral to the overall plot as the story of Brennan and Booth. It started with a crush, was solidified with a Gravedigger, and almost ended in marriage. Despite the fact that the two have been broken up for quite some time, many fans, this one included, always suspected that the two would find a way back to each other. What if something stood in their way? Not a little bump in the road like Roxie, but something with more long term potential?
TNT: The little network with the smart decisions
I adore TNT. For me, they seem to have come out of nowhere when Leverage boomed onto the scene (I know, I’m a late bloomer), but I’ve been keeping a good eye on them since then, and every decision they have made has been a winner.
Before Leverage, TNT was going strong with The Closer and Saving Grace, two unique series driven by strong women. Nothing bad about that angle! Since then they’ve realized their original programming is kind of kick-ass, so they’ve debuted Dark Blue and HawthoRNe. It’s like watching a good game of poker, as Kenny Rogers said: “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em (Leverage), know when to fold ‘em (Trust Me), know when to walk away (Saving Grace being allowed to finish out), know when to run (*cough*Trust Me*cough*)….”
Ratings Clack – Where is FlashForward headed?
FlashForward is one of the more interesting shows of the new season where ratings are concerned. On the one hand, so far it has been a huge upgrade for the 8-9 spot on ABC. And while it has been surpassed by Survivor, it does continue to hold off Bones in the demo. On the other hand, the ratings don’t seem to be settled yet, which makes each week a new adventure. This week, the yo-yo headed back up. What will next week bring? One can only guess. I continue to think that it will eventually be passed up by the fiercely loyal Bones audience at some point, finding its place as the number 3 show in the hour. Elsewhere this week, there was good news for Dancing With The Stars, NCIS, Law & Order, So You Think You Can Dance, and Smallville. The news wasn’t so good for Hank, Parks & Recreation, Three Rivers, or Melrose Place.
Fringe: There’s more than one season of everything
Elizabeth’s back, sharing her ideas about Fringe this time, after musing on the musical TV shows and Glee’s success so far.
So now we’ve spent all summer shocked, amazed and desperate to know just why William Bell wanted to talk to Olivia in the still-existing World Trade Center. And … they waited another two and a half episodes to show us. It’s a strange cliffhanger, to be sure, being drawn out like that, but now at least she’s finally remembered her conversation with Bell, and the shapeshifting-soldier plot is moving forward — not to mention poor Charlie Francis is off the show for sure now. As character sendoffs go, it’s a pretty good one — both important to the plot and emotionally effective. He even gets Olivia to mourn him. At least he got one last chance to do something other than give exposition and act baffled.
Speaking of characters getting to do something more, Peter’s stepped up to take more of a leadership role while Olivia was out of circulation, which is a big step for his character but a welcome one. For now he’s gone back to helping out Olivia and making excuses for his father, so we’ll see what happens later on — especially if he finds out he’s not the “real” Peter, as that Rebecca woman Walter also used to experiment on saw without realizing. Now that he’s starting to have dreams that might be memories of having been taken by this world’s Walter, this new assertiveness of Peter’s could start causing trouble for everybody.
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